Here are some helpful tips to get you started on the forum. Each subforum within the US Hawks has a different look and feel, so I'm working on making pictures showing how to go through the process on the RGSA forum. Until then, please bear with the text descriptions. Thanks.

Also, if you don't find an answer to your question in this topic, you can check the "Forum Help and How To's" topic in the national forum at:

Answer the anti-spam question (these may change from time to time, but we try to make them easy for HG/PG pilots).

You should be logged in after that, but you can only post to the "New Users" forum until you become an "Approved User".

Becoming an "Approved User"

The US Hawks site allows anyone to sign up and post in the "New Users Forum" immediately. To protect the forum from automated spamming software, we require an email confirmation before newly registered users can post to the rest of the forum (including the RGSA forum). The RGSA has been considering the idea of preregistering all RGSA members, but that hasn't been approved yet.

Within a few days of registering you should get a "Welcome" email message asking about your interest in flying.

Reply to the message with a short (maybe a sentence or two) description about your interest.

You should be added to the "Approved User" list within a day or so.

Understanding the forum

The US Hawks forum is organized as a hierarchy of subforums organized in groups. Some groups are at the national level (like "Hang Gliding General" and "Building the US Hawks") and other groups are specialized (like Chapters and History). The RGSA forum is located within the Chapters section (Board index/US Hawks Chapters/Rio Grande Soaring Association). This can be confusing, so we try to use a different forum style for each Chapter so you'll have a good sense of where you're at when you're reading or posting.

Within each forum (and subforum) all information is organized by topics. A topic is basically a discussion thread containing a series of posts by different members. Members can start their own topics and other members can post in them. So if you see a topic that you want to join in, you simply add a new post to that topic. When you add a post, you'll get an editing box that allows you to type your message and add formatting and pictures. You generally press "Submit" when you want to actually post it or "Preview" to look at it first. You can edit your message again and again for up to an hour. After that, it becomes essentially permanent (although you can request corrections be made after the hour limit).

Because the US Hawks is both a national forum and many local forums, you can search for keywords both nationally and within any particular Chapter's local forum. You can also post to your local forum or to the national forum ... whichever is most appropriate for your topic. Chapters can also request private sections for discussions by their own members or officers.

Getting Email Updates (Subscribing and Unsubscribing)

Since your club has been using an email-based message system, you might want to get email notifications when new posts are added. The US Hawks forum allows you to subscribe (or unsubscribe) to different forums and topics so you'll get (or not get) an email message whenever there's a change to that forum or topic.

You can subscribe to a forum or topic by clicking the "Subscribe" button or link somewhere on the page.

You can unsubscribe to a forum or topic by clicking the "UnSubscribe" button or link somewhere on the page (usually the same place as the "Subscribe" button).

On this forum, the subscribe and unsubscribe links are in the lower left corner of the forum page and each topic page. You can subscribe to get updates from the entire RGSA forum or just from certain topics that you want to track. Here's what the topic subscription link looks like:

RGSA/Hawks,Robin has started to hold to one thread where he posts his “Weekend Weather,” updates.

What I have done on that particular thread is to scroll down to the bottom and select “Descending” and then click “GO.”

What that does is stack Robin’s most recent post on top of the last one.This has me looking at his latest post without paging or scrolling down. You might want to select that feature.

Remember too that you can subscribe to a thread and you will receive an email alerting you to a new post that you haven’t read yet. One other thing.When you submit a post make sure that the next thing you see happening is the notice that your post or edit was successful. If it returns you to the page you replied from then you have to hit the back page arrow at the top left and submit again. (then again look for the notice that your post or edit was successful.)Their seems to be a small glitch like that from time to time so keep an eye on it.